On hate – A.O. Scott in NYT:

‘The greatest night in the history of television,” said Chris Rock, a few seconds after Will Smith slapped him. Not a bad off-the-cuff punchline (so to speak). But until that moment — and Smith’s tearful, unrehearsed acceptance speech when he won best actor a short time later — it had been a dull and frustrating evening of television. Few surprises in any category (except maybe when “Belfast” won for original screenplay). Sentimentality triumphing over craft (except when Jane Campion won best director). A gnawing sense that the academy doesn’t understand movies, and maybe even hates them.’

Manohla Dargis answered: ‘Bingo! Mind you, I don’t think the academy and its roughly 10,000 members hate movies; they just sometimes have really terrible taste, like everyone else, except you and me. But I think that as a TV show, the Oscars absolutely have contempt for the art, as the unfunny jokes about the hosts not finishing “The Power of the Dog” underscored.’

Read the complete dialogue here.

A gnawing sense that the academy maybe even hate movies.

There are so-called lovers of literature who appear to be excellent in hating literature.

And the triumph of sentimentality is nothing new, what’s new is that almost everywhere the triumph of sentimentalism now comes without any sense of shame.

The lack of knowledge, disdain for history and the triumph of sentimentalism go very well together.